NINE SONGS I LIKED THIS WEEK IN LIST FORM – MAR 31 – APR 6

Hoping to survive yet another week in "This Week in War!" Also check out the brand-new EP from the amazing Choshech that premiered here a few days ago. It'll come out next week and is well worth your time, especially if you're sad. Keep safe.

As always, check out my various interview projects and other cool shit. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (FALSE!) (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and now also a tape-per-day series on TIK TOK!), and listen to my, I guess, active (?) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You can support my unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming habit.

1. Beaten to Death – "My Hair Will Be Long Until Death," from Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis (Grindcore – Mas-Kina Recordings). The Norwegian masters of "taking grincore seriously and not-so seriously at the same time" are back with a new full-length record, after too long a break. If you thought grindcore was comical, Beaten to Death agree. If you thought grindcore was the best mode of musical expression in the past century, Beaten to Death would agree to that too. The whole album rips. FFO: Pig Destroyer, Miasmatic Necrosis.

2. Sumac – "Yellow Dawn," from The Healer (Experimental/Sludge – Thrill Jockey Records). If there was a human opposite to BIID's grinding clownism it would probably be something like a new Sumac album. Nothing funny about this one, and there are enough movements and ideas in just this first "single" to populate something like six complete grindcore discographies. So, no, not as amusing. But what you get for your unfunny money is a ticket to one of the best human balancing acts of all time. Sumac were already masters of bringing it all it, all of it – the pain, the beauty, the tension, the glory – and shoving into one seamless musical tube. And yet there's something about "Yellow Dawn" that feels on a whole new level, where they are able to take their even most random and seemingly out-there meanderings into absolute, deadly focus. Which is my way of saying this might be the best Sumac track, ever. FFO: Not laughing at people's jokes.

3. Genital Shame – "Schooled in Every Grace," from Chronic Illness Wish (Avant-Garde Black Metal – The Garrote). If I had an award show, then I would bestow upon this insane Philadelphia one-woman project the following awards: "Best Album Title"; "Best Song Title"; "Best Band Name; and "Best Covert Art Typography." That's just off the bat. In the space of six moderately long tracks Genital Shame manages to run the absolute gamut of human emotion and transcendence. You have all the splendor, all the quietude, all the fury and all the dirt you could even dream of, all subtly woven together to create a magnificent tapestry of flower pedals and shit. All of which converges into one unholy mess that, if I am to return to my imaginary award show, results in one very strong "Best Album of the Year" candidate. FFO: Scarcity, Liturgy. P.S.: If anyone in Europe has a tape of this I want it now, thank you.

4. Atvm – "Cancer, from Bipolarities Diskord/Atvm Split (Prog Death Metal – Transcending Obscurity Records). The U.K. death metal terror squad known as Atvm is back. No, this isn't the new album we've been waiting since been plowed in the solar plexus with Famine, Putrid and Fucking Endless, but it's a fantastic new split with proggy icons Diskord, so we're not complaining. Not that much, at least. Not least not complaining since there's enough just in this nine-minute track to make one (me) feel like you've had a good, nourishing meal. You know, the kind with red-headed maggots and landmines made of brown sugar and riffs. So fucking good. FFO: Horrendous, Morbus Chron.

5. Windswept – "Jedes Todes Lohn," from Der eine, wahre König (Black Metal – Primitive Reaction). Your favorite problematic Ukrainians are back, this time under the guise of the brilliant atmospheric black metal project, Windswept. However, the atmospheric part seems a bit out of place this go round. Saenko et al's previous records was much more along those lines, in fact, for a time, becoming my golden standard for "what does atmospheric black metal even mean?" Here, it seems, the point is much less atmospheric and much more, ah, black metal? Producing a quick, forceful and compelling EP. FFO: Svrm, Ultha.

6. Aquilus – "Nigh to Her Gloam," from Bellum II (Atmospheric Black Metal – Northern Silence Productions). Well, if you were missing that golden atmosphere up there in the Ukrainian blurb, then you can get your heavy injection of the fluffy stuff in this massive new track from master of the cloud-sounding black metal, Aquilus. I completely and entirely whiffed on Bellum I when it came out, only to be pointed toward it by a concerned and correct soul. So I am quite intrigued to see where all that etherial/bliss-oriented sound is going to go next. And by the looks of it – it ain't going nowhere. FFO: Clouds, lakes, and anything damp and cold, really.

7. Albert Yeh – "Connection: Close (For My Father)," from Motors​/​Pulses (Experimental – Dragon's Eye Recordings). If interstellar communication is your thing (a bit into 3 Body Problem lately, so pardon the nerdism), then here's a album made of beeps of boops that sound like they come from another universe, but it's a universe made of old gramophones, furniture covered with white sheets, and haunted by a ghost obsessed with clocks. I was going to say that any track dedicated to anyone's father is already a shoe-in for me, but it just so happens that Yeh (Forlesen, Lotus Thief) makes it sound like missing my dad. Which is strange because I just saw him last night. FFO: The Caretaker, Nancy Mounir.

8. Hässlig – "Slaves," from Apex Predator (Punk/Black Metal – Sentient Ruin Laboratories). I'm a simple man with a simple plan, but I have some rules. One said rule, at least for the last six years or so, has been: "If D.B. of Negativa, Hässlig, Delirant, releases new music, you will buy it." And so, bound by my own provisions as Prometheus is bound to that rock, I had no choice but to buy the new Hässlig album and to be happy it exists. As should you too. FFO: Rigorous Institution, Ara.

9. Atræ Bilis – "Inward To Abraxas," from Aumicide (Prog/Tech Death Metal – 20 Buck Spin). It wasn't easy, this week, nor has any week been easy of late. I mean, even choosing which new 20 Buck Spin album to feature wasn't easy, given the recent Tzompantli announcement. But this shit had me in a vice around my proggy nuts, and would not let go. I wasn't necessarily a fan thus far, maybe that's on me, but I wasn't coming into this new album expecting anything to blow me away and blow me the fuck away it in fact did.  Technical, twisting, core-y, too damn clean, over-wrought, all of that is true. But it kicks so much fucking ass it's ridiculous. FFO: Afterbirth, Wormed.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: Morris Kolontyrsky, AKA the man behind some of the best riffs this millennium via Blood Incantation, Black Curse and elsewhere, has released a massive three-volume archive of his excellent ambient work (some of which was featured on MILIM KASHOT VOL. 3).

TWO: New Dysrhythmia album coming.

THREE: One of the best weird bands on earth, Psudoku, recorded themselves playing live to make your life look normal.

FOUR: I've bee reading again. So I have that. I also have existential dread, so hopefully there's a post next week. 

FIVE: I stumbled into an album I probably should have already known this week by a German disso-ish band called Ab-est. And then stumbled into a wonderful and related black metal project called Farson. Pretty cool.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: Death metal band Devotion have a new album coming, and it makes me think of 90s Unleashed.

OH AND: I was pointed to Spanish project Fornaris by the gracious, always supportive Sergio and I can see why. All kinds of weird shit going on – post metal, experimental, a lot. This track sums it up nicely.